May 16, 2007 | BITE: My JournalCan Sandro Go Home Again?I contemplated a first visit to the new Sandro’s somewhere up there in the wilds of the upper east side. I wasn’t rushing.

May 15, 2007 | BITE: My JournalFiorello FallbackFor twenty years Cafe Fiorello has been our fall-in before or after the movies or a night at Lincoln Center.

May 14, 2007 | BITE: My JournalAnd to Think That I Saw Him at Perry Street. And To Think That I Saw Him at Perry Street
I should be furious we waited an hour for our 9 o’clock table…I am when I think about it. But our friend was late, too.

May 12, 2007 | BITE: My JournalSakagura Chef Does SpringI never dreamed I’d find a kaiseki tasting at this mysterious sake enclave in the cellar

May 11, 2007 | BITE: My JournalOdeon Never Grows Old. It Is Old.I can’t remember the last time I was in Odeon…years, decades. We gathered tonight for 7 o’clock drinks at a friends loft on Hudson Street and our pals suggested Odeon for dinner after.

May 10, 2007 | BITE: My JournalFloating with the Fishes at Blue FinFor years I refused to eat before the theater. Me? A worldly New Yorker.( New Yorkers born in the middle west like me can be the most unreformable.) But the years accumulate and suddenly, My Guy won’t eat at 11 and it’s a three hour show or my niece has yoga at 7 a.m. Blue Fin is perfect for something light, steps away from the Broadway action. And it’s Esca, when our curtain is rising closer to 42nd Street

May 7, 2007 | BITE: My JournalO’erleaping Ambition at Insieme It is the radish that makes me shiver with unexpected pleasure. One of three little amusements each on its own dish at Insieme on the Seventh Avenue hip of the Michelangelo Hotel. Sure the itsy cod canapés and the goat’s milk ricotta bruschetta are fine but the radishes are a tell.

April 29, 2007 | BITE: My JournalSunday at KefiMaybe Sunday is not the best night for Kefi.

April 28, 2007 | BITE: My JournalBack to TreeWe’re carrying umbrellas because it’s supposed to rain but the just opened garden at Tree is already a defian
tly third full on this brisk cool Saturday night. Our friends call out from their rickety picnic table. In fact, resourceful Tim has done the table steadying trick while the waitress is still dashing about seeking help.

April 27, 2007 | BITE: My JournalBrooklyn Diner NightcapStill feeling the emotional disorientation of Athol Fugard’s powerful Exits and Entrances,we exit the theater, hungry too. My idea of the perfect nightcap is Brooklyn Diner’s superlative burger, a “plump and exultant napkin ripper,” as I wrote in Best of New York a few months ago.

April 21, 2007 | BITE: My JournalMy Sfoglia AddictionIt’s been ten months since I emerged from a gig at the 92st St Y, cut across the stree to Sfoglia….and fell in love with the sophisticated and savory cooking of Ron Suhanosky and his wife, Colleen Marnell-Suhanosky, especially his surprisingly delicious strawberryflecked tomato sauce on spaghetti and her addictive bread – a turbanlike briche with crackling, buttery roof. Ultimately both New York’s Adam Platt and Frank Bruni loved it too. Now it’s a challenge to get in. The house is booking a month ahead with little left but 10 o’clock tables.

April 19, 2007 | BITE: My JournalGluttony at Daisy May A gourmandlich life is full of great lamb. The tenderest spring lamb at Chez l’Ami Louis in Paris. The rack of aristocratic Jamieson lamb at Gotham Bar & Grill. The velvety marinated lamb chop just out of the tandoori oven at Devi. I still recall the first tastem the startling silkenness more than 25 years ago of lamb marinated Hunan style at the long gone Hunam.

April 18, 2007 | BITE: My JournalChinatown Brasserie RevisesIt’s my first time back at Chinatown Brasserie since the Thai-Chinese executive chef decamped and the dim sum master Joe Ng was officially put in charge of the kitchen.

April 16, 2007 | BITE: My JournalSharing at Mai HouseThough this place can work itself into an annoying uproar when it’s full, at times it’s relatively calm. The Road Food Warrior is always up for Vietnamese food, and the price is right. It’s where we’re happy to come on our own dime. A round trip taxi commute could add another forty bucks, but the subway runs almost directly from our house – avoiding traffic snarls -- and stops at Franklin, steps from a remarkably superior fried spring roll. My first visit last November was no fluke.

March 30, 2007 | BITE: My JournalBarbutoObviously the appetite for amplified tumult is a generational thing. The fierce decibels gen X,Y,and Z thrive on are sheer torture to me and my boomer and avant-boomer pals. Still I’ve always trekked down to cacophonous Barbuto because I love Jonathan Waxman’s rustic Italian ways, determined never to be more than four, so we can lean in and shout over the din.